pooke: howbeit it is not of the best kynd, it is but poor
and weake, and of a byting taste; it grows not fully a yard
above ground, bearing a little yellow flower like to
henbane; the leaves are short and thick, somewhat round at
the upper end; whereas the best tobacco of Trynidado and the
Oronoque, is large, sharpe, and growing two or three yardes
from the ground, bearing a flower of the breadth of our
bell-flower, in England; the salvages here dry the leaves of
this apooke over the fier, and sometymes in the sun, and
crumble yt into poudre, stalk, leaves, and all, taking the
same in pipes of earth, which very ingeniously they can
make."

[Illustration: The contrast.]

It would seem then, if the account given by Strachey be correct, that
the tobacco cultivated by the Indians of North America was of inferior
growth and quality to that grown in many portions of South America,
and more particularly in the West India islands. As there are still
many varieties of the plant grown in America, so there doubtless was
when cultivated by the Indians. While most probably the quality of
leaf remained the same from generation to generation, still in some
portions of America, owing more to the soil and climate than the mode
of cultivating by them, they cured very good tobacco. We can readily
see how this might have been, from numerous experiments made with both
American and European varieties. Nearly all of the early Spanish,
French and English voyagers who landed in America were attracted by
the beauty of the country. Ponce De Leon, who sailed from Spain to the
Floridas, was charmed by the plants and flowers, and doubtless the
first sight of them strengthened his belief in the existence somewhere
in this tropical region of the fountain of youth.

The discovery of tobacco proved of the greatest advantage to the
nations who fostered its growth,--and increased the commerce of both
England and Spain, doing much to make the latter what it once was, one
of the most powerful nations of Europe and possessor of the largest
and richest colonies, while it greatly helped the former, already
unsurpassed in intelligence and civilization, to reach its present
position at the commercial head of the nations of the world.

As Spain, however, has fallen from the high place she once held, her
colonial system has also gone down. And while England, thanks to her
more liberal policy, still retain